11.23.2002

In some random googling this morning (for which I expect to receive a bill from myself for fifty bucks) I stumbled on a superlative blog on appellate matters across the country. Howard Bashman combines humor and heavy-duty substance in a manner that looks effortless, but I know it isn't, because I try.

I think that blogs will ultimately prove to be much more effective marketing devices for individual lawyers and their firms, in that order, than websites, at least for litigators and trial lawyers, because of their dynamic (in the literal sense) nature. One problem with hiring professional services is that it's hard to kick the tires, so to speak, of a lawyer. Their work is intangible. Websites are somewhat static, and the graphics are usually hired done and the content copywritten.

A blog, on the other hand, is real time, and so you can evaluate, at least in a limited sense, how the lawyer can actually respond to events as they evolve. And that's what you need to know when you're hiring a lawyer.

Obviously, the time I spend blogging is time that I could, theoretically, be devoting to paying clients. So, for that matter, is time spent doing housework. I suppose I should say, theoretically doing housework. I long ago learned to rationalize not picking up the living room after the kids when I realized that I wouldn't pay someone $500 to do it, so why should I?

The extension of this thought is that I would be in a world of hurt financially if I started billing myself for the time spent generating this blog. Hey, stranger things have been done with billing in my day. For example, the classic "Programmable Elevator Messages--Why Bother?" of 10/8/2002 will cost me $675.

11.12.2002

It sounds like a B-movie title, but it's really a horrifying mark of the passage of time.

When I was in law school, diligently learning the rules of legal citation, life was simple. There were the Federal Reporters. The old cases were in the series abbeviated "F.," the new cases were abbreviated "F.2d."